Guardian of the Republic

by Allen West

  I was the Task Force Gunslinger Gators commander. Due to the exceptional gunnery skills of our unit, especially our Alpha Battery, we were able to uncover serious issues with that munition and its ability to accurately read meteorological, or met, data. Accurate met data readings are needed at the firing-unit location for the target area, but when target-area met data deviated greatly from the firing unit, the munition was not very effective. Because of our efforts, the Army and Marine Corps realized significant savings by not fielding this flawed munition. We didn’t just want to be good artillerymen, we also wanted to be good stewards of taxpayers’ dollars.

  Not long after returning from Alaska, I got word about the next assignment: a joint exchange to the United States Marine Corps at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejuene. Heck, I thought I must have pissed off someone in the Army to get that, but the three-year assignment was one of the best in my career. I made friendships that have transcended time and distance. I was reintroduced to the spirit of the warrior, and my toughness was challenged and strengthened. I was treated just like a Marine staff officer. It was great.

  Two seriously traumatic events occurred during this tour. First, Angela was diagnosed with breast cancer. She fought hard and is in complete remission today, but there were dicey moments. From her and through that experience, I learned what real toughness is. I am so very proud of her.

  The other traumatic event affected not only my family but our entire nation. It was September 11, 2001—the Pearl Harbor of my generation. As soldiers, we knew America would call upon us, and we had to be ready. I’d studied Muslim culture and had come to understand the radical Islamic terrorist mentality. While Islamic totalitarianism was something seemingly new to many, it has threatened our culture for some time. Thomas Jefferson fought it, in the form of the Barbary pirates, and now this enemy had stepped out of the pages of history and had attacked our shores.

  I would not deploy to Afghanistan or Iraq with my Marine brothers and sisters. Instead I was promoted to lieutenant colonel in the Army in 2001 and had the honor of being promoted by a Marine, Brigadier General Flanagan. I was then selected to command an artillery battalion.

  I had requested Fort Bragg, but my path would take me to Fort Hood in Texas for what was to be my final duty station. I became Deep Strike 6, commander of the Second Battalion, Twentieth Field Artillery Regiment (Multiple Launch Rocket System), Fourth Infantry Division. The battalion’s strength was around 450 soldiers, and in Iraq, as Task Force 2-20, we grew by another hundred.

  It was a great bunch of soldiers. I took command in 2002 on the sixth of June, the anniversary of D-Day, in the same division that took Utah Beach. In January 2003 we got our orders for Iraq, and we were ready and well trained. This assignment was the culmination of years of training that began the first day I donned the Army uniform as a young high school JROTC cadet. I’d been prepared for this very moment, but I would not be prepared for what would come afterward.

  In August 2003 we received intelligence reports that a particular Iraqi policeman had been providing information to the enemy, leading to an increase in ambushes on our patrols. We needed to detain the policeman for questioning because we believed something was about to happen in the next couple of days. I felt a sense of urgency, because my utmost concern was for the safety of those under my command.

  The policeman had been stonewalling our interrogators, and we needed results. So I made the decision to put additional pressure on him with a psychological intimidation tactic. I drew my pistol and threatened to kill him if he did not provide information.

  We took him outside, where he was held over a sand-filled weapons-clearing barrel. After a count of five, I fired my Beretta 9-millimeter pistol over his head into the sand. He began talking. He cried out for Allah and provided several names of individuals who intended to do harm to me and my unit. Afterward, there were no further attacks on my unit while it was under my command.

  I immediately reported the incident and subsequently submitted to an investigation and Article 32 hearing. During the hearing my defense attorney, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Neal Puckett, asked if I would do it all again. Without hesitation I responded, “If it is about the lives and safety of my men, I would walk through hell with a gasoline can.”

  Ultimately, as a result of the hearing, I received an Article 15, a nonjudicial punishment similar to a traffic ticket. I was fined five thousand dollars, given an honorable discharge, and retired with full rank and benefits.

  If Buck West had still been alive, he would have been proud. I had lived up to the parting words he shared back in October 1983 as I prepared to depart for Fort Sill: “Most of all, take care of your men.” I faced the test and lived up to the standard of all those who had been teachers, leaders, and mentors in my life. At the time I didn’t realize the impact this event would have, how big it was perceived back in America, and how it truly changed my path.

  I stood by my actions then, and I stand by them now. Much has been written about the choice I made, and there have been plenty of jackasses who have called me a war criminal and worse.

  What none of them realize is that everything in my life, especially my military life, had shaped me for the decision I made in that moment. Every mentor, every soldier whose eyes I had ever looked into, shaped me to make the stand that I did.

  So as I continue in my life outside of the military, I know that I will continue to be a guardian not only of our republic but also of those men and women who have served, are serving, and shall serve. I will be relentless in defending those who have been willing to make the last full measure of devotion to their country. And for those who have indeed made that ultimate sacrifice, I shall guard their honor.

  In closing this chapter, let me share these words of President Teddy Roosevelt, particularly for those who have never served this country and risked their lives to protect her:

  It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

  Chapter 3

  MY WARRIOR’S CODE

  Tough, Proud, Disciplined.

  —COLONEL DENNY R. LEWIS, COMMANDER,

  EIGHTEENTH FIELD ARTILLERY BRIGADE

  (AIRBORNE), 1997–1999

  At the US Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, it is the goal of every Army major to graduate from the school, move on to a duty station, and earn the prestigious positions of operations and executive officer at the battalion or brigade level. These are termed “branch qualifying” positions, and they’re one of the primary ways of enhancing your chances to be selected for command of a battalion in your respective specialty. During this rite of passage, every major division would send its commanders or future commanders out for a recruiting visit. To put this into perspective, it was like the NFL combine, except you basically were being scouted, tried out, recruited, and drafted all at once.

  In 1996 my desire for my next assignment was Fort Bragg. I’d come back from Korea and wanted to get back to an Airborne unit where I knew several incoming battalion commanders in the artillery.

  Finally the moment arrived. Representatives from Fort Bragg and the XVIII Airborne Corps were up for their visit. Ahead of time I had learned that an incoming brigade commander named Denny Lewis was attending the Pre-Command Course.

  Colonel Denny R. Lewis had an impeccable reputation, so I decided to write him an introductory letter and place it i
n his Pre-Command Course mailbox. As a result I was invited to a dinner with incoming Eighty-Second Airborne Division artillery commander Colonel Jay Hood, who had been my very first battery commander in Italy back in 1984, and with the incoming commander of the Eighteenth Field Artillery Brigade (Airborne), Colonel Lewis.

  I’d never met Denny Lewis before, but doggone, was he one tough SOB. He was a martial arts expert at one time and had tried out for the elite Army counterterrorism unit, Delta Force. He was a quiet man and very discerning. That evening you could tell he was sizing up all of us, like a Roman consul general evaluating his potential line of field commanders. Colonel Lewis would ask simple questions, and it was clear he was carefully analyzing each word in the response. I certainly was nervous, but knew I couldn’t show any trepidation among my peers because I realized we were in competition. That dinner in Leavenworth, Kansas, was the beginning of an incredible mentorship from a man who would come to guide my understanding of what it meant to be the consummate warrior and leader.

  I have encountered a number of outstanding leaders in my military career: Needham, Rokus, McNeill, Abizaid, Lescynski, Gingrich, Sullivan, Bedard, Berndt, Nyland, Boykin, Mundy, Rodriguez, Morris, Smoots, Kryschtal, John, Herspring, Bailey, McDonald, Schneider, Fontenot, Flake, Moreno, Ellis, Cannon, Anderson, and Helmick, to mention a few. There were senior enlisted men, command sergeant majors, and men like Ballogg, Mike and Larry Taylor, Norris Hand, Henry Burns, and Bernardo Aquino who taught and mentored me to be an exceptional soldier’s soldier. But none would have the influence on me as the man I would forever refer to as “Denny R.”

  After that dinner in Leavenworth, I waited with bated breath because I hadn’t interviewed with any other units while I was at the staff college. I wanted to don the maroon beret of an American paratrooper again, and I would not consider anything else.

  Finally the orders arrived: I was to be assigned to Fort Bragg, to the XVIII Airborne Corps Artillery and the Eighteenth Field Artillery Brigade. Damn, was I stoked.

  The biggest surprise was to come. Colonel Denny R. Lewis, Mr. Airborne Artillery, had selected me to be his brigade operations officer. Let me explain what this meant and what an honor it was. The brigade/regimental OpsO position is a senior billet. It lines candidates up for future battalion command, as normally a brigade OpsO has been a battalion OpsO. It meant I would regularly interact directly with the battalion commanders in the brigade and, most important, would have to earn their trust and respect. I could not believe it—I had been given the chance, the opportunity, and the immense responsibility of being in charge of the operations of the Army’s largest artillery unit.

  As “Steel 3” I learned from “Steel 6,” Colonel Lewis, how to be tough, proud, but disciplined. I thought I knew what leadership was, but Colonel Lewis crystallized it for me. Leadership came down to five fundamentals: courage, competence, commitment, conviction, and character. I learned from Steel 6 to be daring and that there were times when a leader has to make a stand, however lonely or unpopular.

  My wife, Angela, will tell you that as OpsO I spent many a night in my office, sleeping on the couch, because I never wanted to be caught short in my duties. At age thirty-six, I was the youngest brigade-level operations officer at Fort Bragg, and I had to carry myself in a manner that clearly conveyed I’d earned the privilege.

  I knew that some folks would be watching to see if I would fail. I had to display enough courage that no one would ever believe I felt unqualified or unprepared for this position.

  Leadership skills were Colonel Lewis’s foremost gifts to me. Beyond that, I was learning my craft from one of the most competent artillerymen I had ever known. When Colonel Lewis and I discussed training and deployment readiness, I was learning from a master, since he had been the Eighty-Second Airborne Division artillery operations officer and a phenomenal artillery battalion commander. I learned how to walk up to a firing position, evaluate the site, and ascertain the nuances of artillery preparedness before anyone opened their mouth.

  I learned not just military operations but the art of decision making. Our brigade motto was “Sweat saves blood.” That simple phrase showed me how a guiding principle can inspire excellence and a sense of compassion for your soldiers. A strong motto can set high standards and instill in your troops a sense of pride in achieving those standards.

  Some people believe that to be compassionate you must lower standards to make a task or goal easier for everybody to achieve. But I learned from Colonel Lewis that such an approach makes a unit mediocre. “Sweat saves blood” declared that hard training—steel sharpening steel—guaranteed success, developed individual strength and pride, and promoted a level of superiority.

  When one day Colonel Lewis said he wanted to create the ultimate military endurance competition, many thought he was nuts. But I understood exactly what Denny R. wanted. So when we held and competed in the first Fort Bragg Perimeter Challenge race, his unit knew what it meant to be a warrior, to truly be tough, proud, and disciplined.

  With that one project, I learned Colonel Lewis had the courage to attempt something that had never been done before. He had the ability to deliver his vision easily, whereas others may have struggled to communicate their goals.

  Working together we designed an endurance race that spanned the entire outer base perimeter, encompassing a ruck march (a long walk with a heavy backpack), lake crossing, land navigation, simulated casualty evacuation, and marathon run. Denny R. was absolutely committed to this event and knew it would be an opportunity to display the professionalism of the soldiers in his brigade and his commitment to toughness—something we need to resurrect not just in our military but in our American culture.

  Of all the leadership skills I honed during this period, it was the last lesson that was most important to me—character. Colonel Lewis taught me that regardless of who was around, it was important to do what’s right. And it was our corps artillery commanding general, Geoff Miller, who coined the phrase “Leaders know what right looks like.” Character is simply defined as doing what is right when no one is watching.

  Courage, competence, commitment, conviction, and character were the fundamental principles of leadership I learned from a man who, had he been born centuries before in Japan, truly would have been a samurai master—“Steel 6,” Colonel Denny R. Lewis.

  These principles form my personal warrior’s code and combine with honor and integrity to shape my personality. I often wonder what Capitol Hill would look like if more elected officials possessed the same code. It would be a code that when violated would result in personal shame. Now, I’m not advocating politicians sit on the East Capitol steps and commit seppuku or ritual suicide (although some might welcome it). But I believe we’ve come to a point in America where our elected officials possess no code whatsoever. There is a lack of courage to be truthful with the American people and tell them what they need to hear, not just the words that some poll has confirmed will win election or reelection.

  Let me make myself very clear. I did not enjoy losing a congressional election. But I did and will continue to make a stand, even if alone, to convey to my fellow Americans the truth and what they must hear.

  The situation in which we find our country today is a direct result of a lack of competence. I will be the first to state I do not believe the best and brightest of America occupy elected positions, especially in Washington, DC, and, as of 2013, in our White House. Americans have devolved from demanding competent leadership to simply choosing another “American Idol,” aided by a complicit media machine and an entertainment industry I wish would stick to playing make-believe and singing songs instead of attempting political punditry. We have lost our sense of commitment and conviction to our core values and principles, so that it seems the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, and the United States Constitution are viewed as relics to be crated and buried in some giant warehouse like the last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

  And when it com
es to character, well, how many more despicable stories, broadcast simply to feed the twenty-four-hour news cycle, must we hide from our children? I know perfection is unattainable, but as a nation and a culture, we should at least desire to strive for it. I learned that one should never allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good enough, but today we don’t even have good enough.

  In the Army, indeed throughout the military, there are consequences to violating the code of leadership, our Bushido, or “way of the warrior.” You will be relieved of command and not allowed further promotion.

  Some would then say, “Well, LTC West, you were relieved of command.” Yes, I was, in the aftermath of the interrogation, but I stand by my decision and the action I took in Iraq. Why? Because the man I most highly respected, the personification of a warrior, Colonel Denny R. Lewis, stood by my decision as well. He got in contact with me in Iraq. He told me he was pissed off about the way I was being treated and called the action taken by my division commander pure unadulterated BS. In fact, it was ol’ Denny R. who leaked the story to Washington Times writer Rowan Scarborough and gave it national exposure.

  I always kept in mind that the motto of the Second Battalion, Twentieth Field Artillery Regiment (Multiple Launch Rocket System), which I commanded, was “Duty not reward.” It was a motto that meant selfless service, self-sacrifice, commitment to duty—and it implied that my duty was first and foremost to the men I had been selected to command.

  At the most critical point in my military career, God had presented me with the ultimate test and challenge of the principles in which I said I believed. I was to take steady fire from personal attacks and misinformation that continues still today, but I was ready. I knew what it meant to be a warrior. I knew what it meant to make a courageous stand. I knew this was the test that would set me on a different path than what I thought life had in store for me.